Boomer Monologues

Boomer Monologues

By Thomas LyfordSociety & CulturePersonal Journals
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Boomer Monologues episodes

  • I, ROBOT
    “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. Watched C-beams glitter in the dark.” —Roy Batty. . 
    A fun, philosophical one-hour-and-fifteen-minute-long homage to the likes of Gog, Robbie the Robot, the Lost in Space Robot, the H.A.L. 9000, Colossus, the Terminator, and all those Blade Runner androids, as well as to the likes of Rod Serling, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Moon Watcher, Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Philip K Dick, Stephen Hawking, and even Plato, Dylan Thomas and Cole Porter for the little bits and pieces of wisdom and insight. Robot philosophy and psychology. 
    “I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.”   -H.A.L. 9000
    1 hr 14 min
  • LIKE THAT DARING YOUNG MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE
    I have to admit, I have always been an air show junkie. Give me a good baseball cap, my Ray-bans, binoculars, camera, fold-out camp chair, and some heavy-duty sunscreen (SFP 70 or better) and I’m good to go. I’ll jockey myself up through that crowd of like-minded, similar-looking rubber-neckers and stake out the ultimate spot for myself, front and center, as close to the roped-off runway as I can get. And then just consign myself to the baking tarmac sun for hours, happy as a clam, thrilling to the deafening roar of of jets tearing out a rip in the atmosphere, to the bone-jarring vibrations of the vintage bombers lumbering overhead, and to the sheer butterfly beauty of the ultralights. 
    Yes, and let me tell you now... I’ve seen some things at airshows in my time! Some pretty amazing and unexpected things too, as you might imagine. And this? This is the story of one of them.
    So welcome back to BOOMER MONOLOGUES, finally. I’m your host, Tom Lyford, and this is Season Two. Our first episode is titled “Like That Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze.”
    17 min
  • TOBACCO ROAD

    BOOMER MONOLOGUES Episode 8- "Tobacco Road" Hello. Welcome back to BOOMER MONOLOGUES. This is Episode 8- "Tobacco Road.” I’m inviting you to step back in time with me again, this time to Main Street, USA, circa 1955. I suggest you bring your Covid-19 masks along, though, to filter out some of the hazardous-to-your-health, second-hand smoke you'll definitely encounter there. The mid-Twentieth Century is a very smoky era, a land of Zippo lighters; cigarette-dispensing machines wherever people gather; cigarette commercials with the catchiest jingles; cool TV celebrities smiling their big, alluring smiles while smoking their favorite brands all over the boob tube and urging you to join right in with them; and. last but not least, a handful of very impressionable and vulonerable little nine-year-olds, like me.

    1 hr 22 min
  • BORN TO BE MILD PART II: Head Out on the Highway

    BORN TO BE MILD PART II: "Head Out on the Highway" (or Zen and the Art of Motorcyclist Wannabeism) continues the saga of a dyed-in-the-wool Walter Mitty-ish man’s relationship with both the stark reality of sheer testosterone  daredeviltry and the dream-world  of a lurid imagination.  Will Tom end up being hit by the... "screamin' deisel that was California bound," a la the song, "Black Denim Trousers"? Succumb to the fate of "The Leader of the Pack"? Or continue on through life as the boring, mild-mannered poet/armchair hobbyist?  

    1 hr 1 min
  • BORN TO BE MILD- Part I: Get your Motor Runnin'
    "Born To Be Mild" Parts I and II:  the phenomenon of Wannabe-ism (a la... The Christmas Story's Ralphie the wannabe Red-Ryder-Rifle-toting cowboy, or  Peanuts' "Snoopy and the Red Baron" wannabeism. These two tell-all segments chronicle my own rise from first "living" my childhood Roy Rogers fantasy in my own mind all the way up through becoming a 'bad ass biker' wannabe. Along the way, we enjoy  a brief visit with two famous wannabes: Walter Mitty and George Plimpton.
    42 min
  • BRAT PACK - Part I
    Welcome. You’re tuning in to BOOMER MONOLOGUES, a memoir podcast of some of the various adventures in my life from anywhere between 1946, the year of my birth, (yeah, not too much here from THAT year) and, so far, the year 2020. All episodes describe true events; however, the dialogue is only as approximate as my memory can allow. This is Season 1, Episode 4, titled “BRAT PACK - Part I. In this episode, I invite you to please take a seat in my circa-early-1970s classroom to “watch” me flounder with classroom management as a budding, so-called teacher of high school English.
    32 min
  • What a Long Strange Trip It's Been
    What a long, strange musical trip it's been starting from a fetus' point-of-view (that would be me), rockin’ in the womb to 1946's Top Ten playing on the kitchen radio (out 'there,' on the 'other side' of the wall), all the way up to Bob Dylan's Christmas-killing Bringin' It All Back Home. Join me on this unstuck-in-time sentimenal journey which begins back in The Land That Pop Culture Forgot, a strange land of vacuum-tube "phonographs" and AM radios that take a full minute to warm up before they'll play, a vinyl-records-only landscape that is incapable of even imagining such a sci-fi concept of "stereo." And then journey on through the latter half of the Twentieth Century at a time when Pop Music was evolving from "How Much is That Doggie In the Window?" through "You Ain't Nothin But a Hound Dog!" and all the rest of the way over to Johnny's house, where "Johnny's in the basement, mixin’ up the medicine.”
     all the way up to Dylan's Christmas-ruining release of Bringin' It All Back Home. Here
    59 min
  • The Cool Hand Lukes Part I
    Paul Newman as Luke in the 1967 classic film, Cool Hand Luke, is the ultimate, larger-than-life anti-hero in this saga of The System’s need to break the strong wills of free-spirited charismatics who refuse to allow themselves to obediently lie down under the iron thumb of Authority. A companion piece to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the movie is steeped in religious symbolism. The podcast's thesis: Although extremely rare, there are some real Cool Hand Lukes out there. This episode focuses on a child who courageously stood up to the abuse of a teacher in the mid-fifties...
    52 min
  • The Cool Hand Lukes Part II
    During BASIC Training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, in 1969, I was drawn under the guru-like spell of a Private Rogers who confounded Charlie Company, especially its D. I.'s ("Drill Instructors" in the Smokey the Bear Hats), with his mysterious ability to endure with a smile WHATEVER punishments were dished out to break his spirit, while continuing to live his life on his terms, not theirs.
    1 hr 11 min

About Boomer Monologues

From the publisher's feed

The “Good ‘Ol Days” filtered through a prism of true stories, poetry, and pop culture memory morsels from the fads, personalities, song lyrics, movies and television shows of the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s,…